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Aviation History
1957
1957 - 0568.PDF
570 FLIGHT, 3 May 1957 NAVY ESTIMATES Carrier, Missile-ship and Aircraft Planning ISSUED on April 26, the Admiralty's explanatory statementon the Navy Estimates * poses the question "How will thepolicy of having substantially smaller armed forces, and of reducing our overseas garrisons, affect the responsibilities of theRoyal Navy?" This is answered in the following terms: It leads logically to the conclusion that the new Navy must play a fullpart in meeting peace-time overseas commitments. This can best be done by reorganizing the Navy into Task Groups, builtaround the air power of the carrier. The statement goes on to report that the front-line carriersat present in the Active Fleet are Ark Royal, Eagle, Albion and Bulwark. Bulwark, employed last year on flying training, hasnow replaced Centaur in the Active Fleet so that Centaur can be modernized. The construction of Hermes continues andVictorious is due to complete her modernization at the end of this year. Victorious will be the first carrier in service with a fully angledflight deck. She will have steam catapults, new radar and landing- control systems, and the latest arrester gear. Her modernizationhas included re-boilering, the installation of new armament and improved accommodation. She will be able to operate all existingand planned naval aircraft, and will have the equipment and facilities to arm them with air-to-air guided weapons. The next carrier in the modernization programme will beEagle, which will be taken in hand after Victorious has joined the Active Fleet. Eagle will in fact be brought up to the samestandard as Victorious, but as she is a much newer ship the cost will be considerably less. Various considerations—above all thefinancial limitation—make it impossible to aim at so high a standard in the case of all our operational carriers. However,the modernization of Warrior, carried out before she was sent on special duties in connection with the forthcoming nuclear tests,included the partially angled flight deck and improved arrester gear; and Centaur, having an angled [partially—Ed.] deck already, * "Explanatory Statement on the Navy Estimates, 1957-58", by the First Lord of the Admiralty. Price Is 3d, H.M.S.O. is to be equipped with steam catapults and new arrester gear. It has been found possible to equip the new design of fleetEscorts with guided weapons. Orders have been placed for four of these vessels, which will be the first to be armed with the SeaSlug guided missile [a surface-to-air weapon by Armstrong Whitworth—Ed.]. Of H.M.S. Girdleness it is stated, "The Navy's experimentalguided weapon ship was commissioned last July and has since carried out a number of trials. In September her first testmissile, from which the sea-to-air guided missile, is being developed, was successfully fired and other satisfactory firingshave followed. Progress in equipping the Navy's new class of guided missile ship with their weapon systems will, of course, belargely dependent on the success of the Girdleness trials." The aircraft carrier Ocean is employed in non-flying trainingand Warrior in "special trials". Under the heading "Ships at Present in all Classes of Reserve or Undergoing Extended Refit,Modernization, Conversion, etc.", are the carriers Victorious, Centaur, Triumph, Glory, Theseus and Magnificent, the aircraftrepair ship Perseus and the aircraft maintenance carrier Unicorn. In course of construction is one carrier—Hermes—Hercules hav-ing been sold to India and construction of Leviathan having been suspended. The Scimitar is expected in the Fleet by the middle of 1958,and the first deliveries should be made during the current financial year. Intensive flying training will soon begin. The Sea Vixenis also coming along well, and the production programme is up to date. Its armament includes air-to-air guided weapons, whichhave already been fired under test conditions. The N.A.39 strike aircraft will have a considerable range and ability to carry anatomic bomb. It will be "a most formidable" addition to the Royal Navy's striking power. Considerable numbers of Whirl-wind helicopters will be delivered during the coming financial year for use in the anti-submarine role. These aircraft, whichcan also carry troops, are expected to be in service in the second half of 1957. MORE ABOUT BRITISH GUIDED MISSILES (continued from page 568) weapon left the aircraft successfully and followed the designed flight pattern after launching . . . "After further air-launching trials, the Venom was armed with the first complete operational round. A radio-controlled target aircraft, fitted .vith heaters to simulate radiation from a modern aircraft, was put into the air, and Mr. M. P. Kilburn, the new chief test pilot of the Propeller Company, pursued it in the Venom. The weapon . . . scored a direct hit on the target, which crashed into the sea. "A continuous programme of air firing has since been carried out at Aberporth. Every firing has yielded valuable information and has led to progressively greater precision. The percentage of direct hits has become consistently higher. "It had always been recognized that the Aberporth range was too limited in size to allow high-speed target aircraft ... to be used. An additional disadvantage was the impossibility of recovering weapons from the sea. Excellent facilities, however, were available at the rocket range at Woomera, in Australia, and a small test team was established there early in 1955 with the assistance of Mr. T. W. Air, of the de Havilland Aircraft Pty., Ltd., of Australia. The Woomera test pro- gramme began with a number of successful familiarization tests using a Sabre aircraft. Firings carried out later against a Jindivik . . . were completely successful and several targets were destroyed. "In a brief space of time, de Havilland Propellers have designed, developed and put into production a weapon which has proved to be of exceptional merit. Existing factories have been re-equipped, and new premises have been acquired. A large factory is nearing completion beside the Company's existing factory at Walkden, near Lostock, in Lancashire, and this will be used solely for the assembly of Firestreak. "A servicing organization has been built up. Instructors at Hatfield are busy initiating Service personnel into the use of their new. weapon. In Australia the Propeller Company has set up two establishments at Salisbury and Woomera and in that country valuable assistance in staffing these is given by de Havilland Aircraft Pry., Ltd., from their factory near Sydney. "Throughout this work the closest support and encouragement has been given to de Havilland Propellers by the Ministry of Supply and their various technical establishments, by the Royal Air Force, the Royal Australian Air Force, the range authorities at Larkhill and Aberporth, and the Weapons Research Establishment at Woomera. Thanks go to them for the parts each has played." De HaviUand's weapon bears a weighty responsibility as ouronly air-launched missile near to squadron Service. The picture shows it to resemble the model test vehicle exhibited at Farn-borough 3i years ago, with the exception of having an appreciably greater wing span (perhaps indicating an improved performanceat altitude). Overall length is some 12ft, and the weight is prob- ably more than three times as much as that of the smaller and lesspotent American counterparts like Falcon and Sidewinder. Com- pared with Fireflash (Fairey Aviation's weapon, already in limitedproduction) Firestreak has a very much greater body volume, indi- cating an increase in warhead lethality. MISSILES AND THE R.A.F. A PRESS conference held last week by the Air Ministry pro-•**• duced several statements of considerable magnitude regarding the R.A.F. employment of unmanned weapons. In the field of offensive weapons the "major R.A.F. effort" hadbeen applied to the stand-off bomb and the ballistic missile. The former, which would be in service first, was a self-propelled air-to-ground weapon with a nuclear warhead which could be carried by a V-bomber to within "some hundreds of miles" of the target (welloutside the range of ground-launched missiles). The weapon would then be released and would find its target automatically. It has been announced by A. V. Roe that they are associatedwith development of such a weapon. (The Strategic Air Com- mand of the U.S.A.F. have been using a missile of the same sort—the Bell GAM-63 Rascal—for a considerable time.) The conference produced supposedly theoretical statementsregarding winged surface-to-surface weapons—implying that, were Britain to develop such things, the R.A.F. would be theService responsible for their operation. It was also stated that the R.A.F. regarded the ballistic missile as "close to the ideal deterrentweapon." (Previously it had been assumed that the British Army would be solely responsible for operation of our ballisticmissiles, of either British or American origin. Nothing official has yet been said regarding our industry's work on such devices, butit has been reported in both the British and foreign Press that two of the firms engaged in such work are English Electric and deHavilland.) Regarding defensive weapons, trials with the Fairey Fireflashtraining missile had been "very encouraging," Many Fireflash had been fired at Meteor drones from Swift 7s of a unit com-manded by W/C. J. O. Dalley. No estimate of the date of intro- ducing the Firestreak could be made until its reliability had beenfully assessed. As things stand at present the Firestreak will be the first operational R.A.F. missile, and it should be followed intoservice some time next year by the Bloodhound, surface-to-air weapon. * .. ..'•'. ";'?.'.'>..-• :'. ;,.'. .'. .,-, --• • •
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